Inside Out - 18th Edition

INSIDE OUT – Toronto Gay and Lesbian Video and Film Festival begins this week on the 15th for a full 10 days.  The focus this year is AUSTRALIA – films from Down Under. 

For a full list, schedule of films and box-office information, check the festival website at http://www.insideout.ca

Here are capsule reviews of a few films previewed at INSIDE OUT:-
Please check site as more film capsule reviews will be added during the 10 day festival.

THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT
(Australia 1994) **** Directed by Stephan Elliott

Quintessential gay feel-good movie was a tremendous hit when it first opened in 1994 and should be seen again and again.  This time around, as if the audience (normally consisting mainly of gays for this movie) will not be hooting and making enough noise, everyone will be allowed to let loose with a sing or drag along led by drag queens with the ABBA songs.  The story concerns two boisterous drag queens and a transsexual (Terence Stamp, Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce) taking a cross Australian journey using the bus they crowned Pricilla.  During the road trip, they encounter prejudices and quite the few adventures.  Though a bit melodramatic at the end, this movie is still as fresh as the day it opened.  All the actors deliver winning performances in their stunning outfits.

AVANT JE N”OUBLIE (BEFORE I FORGET) (France 2007) *
Directed by Jacques Nolot

The third (I have only seen this one) of a semi-autobiographical trilogy of an aging and ailing Parisian hustler, Pierre (played by director Nolot himself) is an extremely depressing and boring work.  Pierre’s older lover and lover dies.  He copes with loss and regret while going around giving young things blowjobs and the like.  The sex scenes are incredibly un-erotic and mechanical – so don’t expect coming to this film for that purpose.  BEFORE I FORGET would have been more interesting if Nolot showd more of Pierre’s positive or redemptive qualities.  The film generates a kind of intimacy showing Pierre’s problems, but that is not enough to spend 110 minutes in the theatre.  There are better things to do in life such as visiting a sick relative.

LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR (France 2007) ***
Directed by Christophe Honore

Bad boy Christophe Honore (director of the notorious mother son movie MA MERE) does charming Jacques Demy (THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG) style.  LES CHANSONS D’AMOUR has lots of umbrellas and rain.  The songs, which make a nice diversion, are dispersed throughout the film to relate the feelings of the characters.  The sex recurring theme concerns a threesome relationship involving sexy Ismail (Louis Garrel – Honore’s muse from MA MERE), Alice (Clotilde Hesme) and Julie (Ludivine Sagnier).  When Julie dies unexpectedly, Ismail finds solace in the bed of hottie Erwann (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet).  Honore surprisingly captures the emotions of his characters in this otherwise whimsical tale of youth and wild abandon.  Don’t expect any story but the film flows smoothly from one incident to another.  The domineering mother again makes an appearance in the film in the form of Alice’s mother.

LIKE A VIRGIN (South Korea 2006) ***
Directed by Lee Hae-yeong and Lee Hae-jun

From South Korea comes a gay teen comedy about Madonna and Ssireum wrestling.  This form of wrestling is similar to sumo or the Turkish style of wrestling and involves as many complicated moves as a Madonna video.  The protagonist Oh Dong-gu (Deok-Hwan Ryu) is a talented wrestler but one who needs to win the contest in order to earn moneyf for a sex change operation.  LIKE A VIRGIN is a feel-good, quirky and heart warming comedy that though gets a bit violent at times – the father beating up his kid to a bloody pulp – is mostly entertaining and harmless.  The Lees also tackle other gay teen issues like young love, hero worship and coming to terms with oneself.  The wrestling matches with lots of body contact should provide some eroticism for those interested in this kind of sport.

NEWCASTLE (Australia 2008) ***
Directed by Dan Castle

Lots of nice young hot bods to gawk at in this Aussie tale of surfing!  The story of the Australian film NEWCASTLE centres on bothers Jesse and gay-ish Fergus, both die hard surfers.  Together they take off with friends (two girls included) to the coast where they party, surf, fu**, surf and fu**.  Too bad that most of the copulation take place between opposite sexes.  But there is a bit of frolicking between Fergus and his mate towards the end.  To be fair to director Dan Castle, his film succeeds in creating the male camaraderie as well as competition as to the best surfer.  The underwater and surf photography is impressive and Castle moves his film along at a brisk pace that suits the tone of his film.  The only problem (no fault of Castle) is the heavy accented Aussie dialogue that takes a while to get used to.

SAVAGE GRACE (USA 2007) ***
Directed by Tom Kalin

No one can forget director Tom Kalin’s SWOON in the 90’s when queer films were a scarce commodity.  In SAVAGE GRACE, Kalin returns with a story of a wealthy and perverse family whose members literally destroy each other for the hell of it.  Beautiful and uncontrollable mother, Barbara (Julianne Moore) puts the reins on her queer son Tony (Eddie Redmayne) while the father, Brooks (Stephen Dillane), the father of the plastics industry suffer and torture both.  Two words describe Kalin’s film –pretentious and camp.  But though Kalin’s film feels odd in the beginning, Kalin proves that his unconventional way of storytelling beats the Hollywood way.  Moore is again superb.  SAVAGE GRACE gets a commercial opening next month. 

LES TEMOINS (THE WITNESSES) (France 2006) **
Directed by Andre Techine

Highly anticipated but deeply disappointing overwrought melodrama from world class director Andre Techine (WILD REEDS) set during the birth of AIDS era in 1984 Paris.  Teen Manu (Johan Libereau) has contacted the disease while his lovers, Adrien (the always excellent Michel Blanc) and Mehdi (Sami Bouajila) and others deal with the crisis.  Techine is more interested in the responses of his characters to the dilemma and to his credit, he invokes the desperation of the times.  But the arguments put forth for the behaviour of his characters: reason for the platonic relationships; hiding of the truth of Manu to his sister; fights between Adrien and Mehdi are not convincing.  The result is a reasonably well made but empty piece of work that leaves the audience unaffected by the incidents on display.

YOU BELONG TO ME (USA 2007) *
Directed by Sam Zalutsky

YOU BELONG TO ME begins as a romantic drama.  Jeffrey (Daniel Sauli) rents an apartment in a building to be close to his so-called boyfriend.  When the audience is settled with an ordinary type love story, director Zalutsky shifts his focus midway mark to turn his film into a horror flick.  The fag hag landlady, Gladys (Patti D’Arbanville) and the supposedly deaf super imprison poor Jeffery with no means of escape.  Besides the uneven turn, the film often expends precious time showing the characters moving from one place to another.  Jeff is an architect but nothing is mentioned of his work, office or anything else, except one phone call from his office since he goes missing.  And whatever happened to cell phones in this movie?  YOU BELONG TO ME could have succeeded if it was made as either a real camp comedy or slasher horror.

XXY (Argentina/Spain/France 2007) ****
Directed by Lucia Puenzo

15-year old Alex (Ines Efron) is experiencing all the problems that come with adolescence.  But Alex is also a hermaphrodite, a secret well hidden by his biologist father Kraken (Ricardo Darin) – the reason he has brought his family to live in a secluded Uruguay fishing post.  Things come to a boil when a plastic surgeon surgeon friend visits as the parents are considering a sex change for Alex.  Director Puenzo has crafted a brilliant tale of family conflict and sexual acceptance through the incidents arising around the sexual awaking of Alex through her advances towards the surgeon’s son (Martin Piroyansky).  XXY is a daring film ahead of its time in theme and execution and clearly the best of the lot of films screened at Inside Out.